Bash script to calculate time elapsed

I am writing a script in bash to calculate the time elapsed for the execution of my commands, consider:

STARTTIME=$(date +%s)
#command block that takes time to complete...
#........
ENDTIME=$(date +%s)
echo "It takes $($ENDTIME - $STARTTIME) seconds to complete this task..."

I guess my logic is correct however I end up with the following print out:

"It takes seconds to complete this task..."

Anything wrong with my string evaluation?

I believe bash variables are untyped, I would love if there is a "string to integer" method in bash nevertheless.

Solution 1:

I find it very clean to use the internal variable "$SECONDS"

SECONDS=0 ; sleep 10 ; echo $SECONDS

Solution 2:

Either $(()) or $[] will work for computing the result of an arithmetic operation. You're using $() which is simply taking the string and evaluating it as a command. It's a bit of a subtle distinction. Hope this helps.

As tink pointed out in the comments on this answer, $[] is deprecated, and $(()) should be favored.

Solution 3:

You are trying to execute the number in the ENDTIME as a command. You should also see an error like 1370306857: command not found. Instead use the arithmetic expansion:

echo "It takes $(($ENDTIME - $STARTTIME)) seconds to complete this task..."

You could also save the commands in a separate script, commands.sh, and use time command:

time commands.sh

Solution 4:

You can use Bash's time keyword here with an appropriate format string

TIMEFORMAT='It takes %R seconds to complete this task...'
time {
    #command block that takes time to complete...
    #........
 }

Here's what the reference says about TIMEFORMAT:

The value of this parameter is used as a format string specifying how the timing information for pipelines prefixed with the time reserved word should be displayed. The ‘%’ character introduces an escape sequence that is expanded to a time value or other information. The escape sequences and their meanings are as follows; the braces denote optional portions.

%%

    A literal ‘%’.
%[p][l]R

    The elapsed time in seconds.
%[p][l]U

    The number of CPU seconds spent in user mode.
%[p][l]S

    The number of CPU seconds spent in system mode.
%P

    The CPU percentage, computed as (%U + %S) / %R. 

The optional p is a digit specifying the precision, the number of fractional digits after a decimal point. A value of 0 causes no decimal point or fraction to be output. At most three places after the decimal point may be specified; values of p greater than 3 are changed to 3. If p is not specified, the value 3 is used.

The optional l specifies a longer format, including minutes, of the form MMmSS.FFs. The value of p determines whether or not the fraction is included.

If this variable is not set, Bash acts as if it had the value

$'\nreal\t%3lR\nuser\t%3lU\nsys\t%3lS'

If the value is null, no timing information is displayed. A trailing newline is added when the format string is displayed.